Effects of double ground faults in Wind Farms collector cables

Medium Voltage collector cables of Wind Farms have metal shields connected to the grounding systems of the towers and of the connection station. Thanks to this bonding, when a ground fault occurs, the fault current splits itself among all the grounding systems of the wind farm, this causing a reduction of the ground potential rise at the fault location. Nevertheless, in presence of double ground faults, very high ground potential rises occur at the two fault locations and safety against electric shock is not always assured. In order to study this issue, the paper presents a model for simulating in a simple way the effects of double ground faults occurring in Medium Voltage collectors of extended wind plants connected to the High Voltage network.